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Webcam Credit Card Reader (?)

Now that sounds like gibberish, right? It did to me. But then found out about Jumio on TechCrunch (of course). Here is how it works:

You plug it into your website, it turns your webcam into a credit card reader, you hold your card in front of your webcam, authorize a purchase, and you are done. Plus, it’s more secure than other conventional online cc transaction as it requires the physical presence of the card in order to work. Jumio even has a wordpress plugin so those using WP for their websites can also benefit from it.

Do you still not understand my excitement? This could be the solution to my PayPal woes. I could add it as a payment option on my website (will tell you my website plans in another post) and customers won’t hesitate too much using it thinking ‘give my credit card details to a Pakistani website? I guess not!‘ because you are actually sending the data to Jumio and not to me.

Did I mention it’s FREE? Yes, dahlins – you heard me right … the darn thing is free to install. You don’t have to pay a one-time fee, a monthly fee, a yearly subscription fee …. nothing. Well obviously, it’s not a charity … they charge 2.75% of your transaction but considering I am using a friend’s PayPal account (OK, who am I kidding -am using the 25-yr old’s PayPal) that’s based in Singapore and costs me about 10% in transaction fees (PayPal fees, converting US $ into Singapore $, then converting it into Pakistani Rs = 10%) 2.75% is almost free.

Now, what I need to find out is how I can withdraw the money. Can I have the money wired to my bank in Pakistan? Would they give me a debit card like Payoneer, or what? The site is temporarily down (uh-oh, not a good sign) but considering the product just went online a month ago, I won’t make an issue of it.